


Drifting Away

by bowlingfornerds



Series: long fics [12]
Category: The 100
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Space, Astronauts, F/M, Fluff, Impending Death, The Ark, alternate universe - astronauts, impending danger, it had to be done, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 08:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4384541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlingfornerds/pseuds/bowlingfornerds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ground, Ground, this is the Ark, come in.” There was just static. “Ground. This is the Ark. We are in a code red situation. Please come in.” </p><p>Clarke Griffin is in space.<br/>But this isn't a story of her on the Ark, running out of oxygen in one hundred years time, as an entire civilisation needs to get to the ground. No.<br/>This is the story of her on the Ark - the space station orbiting Earth - in her job as an astronaut, in the modern day, running out of oxygen as her and the three members of her team need to get back to the ground. And she never thought it would be this way.</p><p>An AU in space.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drifting Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jordazfen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jordazfen/gifts).



> Hey!  
> So, I really wanted to do a fiction that I had never seen before. And I've never seen a fic where Clarke actually chooses to be in space. Here, though, she does.  
> This amazing idea was presented to me by Jordan and one of her friends came up with the idea, not knowing where they got it from (It was Gravity. It was always Gravity.)  
> @jordazfen also was my fantastic beta reader and editor and I thank her so much because she's absolutely amazing, and a bunch of the stuff in this was actually written by her, and I wanted to keep it. So thanks m'lady.

Clarke Griffin fucking loved looking at Earth.

It was gorgeous and looked perfectly spherical when everyone (well, hopefully everyone) knew it actually wasn’t. And the colours and the light – there was just no way to describe looking at Earth – because it was beautiful. And to think, billions of people lived down there. And she was up here, in space. Fucking space.

She glanced around the pod, reminding herself that she was up there every day. She, out of seven billion people, was in space.

Fuck, there was no way to actually describe that. Her space team was something legends were made of, too. While they all had to learn engineering – enough to fix the pod when it broke, or tweak a satellite or a signal – by far the greatest mechanic to ever walk the Earth, and then space, was Raven Reyes. And Clarke was sharing the same filtered oxygen with her. Also up there with her was Jasper Jordan, chemist, astrologer and all-around fantastic guy. He was the one who kept the mood light when it got too intense and the fake air felt suffocating.

But there was then Bellamy Blake – head of the mission and general pain in her ass. He wasn’t a legend, as far as she was concerned – but to NASA, he was practically a god. The guy had been on four space missions before this one, walked on the moon, and generally kept a seven man team alive when the oxygen failed and the re-entry to Earth was shaky at best and a complete catastrophe at worst. And he was only twenty five.

Sure, she had spent her days, training to become an astronaut, looking up to this guy. She’d read every article on him, found out as much as possible from everyone who’d ever breathed the same air as the man. He was her idol, and only five years older than her. (He wasn’t too bad looking either, she had to admit. It was no surprise that he had won All About Space Magazine’s ‘Meteor Male of the Year’ for the last three years)

But then she met the guy and he called her Princess, and generally turned out to be an asshole, so that dream went down the space toilet.

She even groaned when she found out he was on the same team as her for the pod mission. And she was going to space – and she complained. God, he ruined everything.

Clarke tore her gaze away from the window again, looking away from the emptiness of space, and the brightness of the Earth. She had taken so many photos and it still didn’t live up to what she saw each day. For the team, Clarke was both medical supervisor and one of the spacewalkers. She’d learnt everything she knew about medicine from her mother, a world-renowned surgeon, and everything she knew about spacewalking from the guy who coined the nickname ‘Space Walker’ AKA Finn Collins AKA lying, cheating asshole.

Even so, she still loved the anti-gravity.

She gripped the metal, pulling her floating body through the tunnels of the station. There was such thing as artificial gravity, but it was too time-consuming to turn on, and wasted too much power. It was a fail-safe, really.

She made it to the common area of the space station; a small table bolted to, what they assumed was, the floor. Jasper was sitting in there, a strap over his waist attaching him to the metal so he wouldn’t float.

“Hey Clarke,” he smiled.

“Hey, did you get the signals through?” She asked. He nodded. Their mission was long and complex. There were different parts to it – fixing what a small meteor shower broke, collecting signals and sending them to the ground, sending out a pod to collect data. It was quite boring to consider, but it was also fairly amazing. Because they were in space, and it was all unknown and new – something that the rest of the world hadn’t even been able to see before now.

“I made sure NASA got them, too,” he told her. Clarke nodded, strapping herself down. She glanced at the red light, now flickering away to her right and mentally prepared herself.

She had just come from where she was monitoring Raven and Bellamy’s spacewalk. Before she’d looked out the window, taking in Earth and the currents of the ocean again, she’d closed the air lock, her two team mates once inside the station again. Now the red light was blinking, she knew the inner lock had been opened and they’d returned. She only had a few moments before they returned.

Apparently, Jasper had caught the look on her face.

“Stop worrying, Clarke,” he said with a smile. “Just admit that you’re into Bellamy and this all goes away.” Clarke rolled her eyes. Jasper had it set in his mind that she and Bellamy were made for each other – apparently, the way they went out of their way to avoid each other was total chemistry to him.

“I’m not into Bellamy,” she replied.

“You are, and you know it. Didn’t you once tell me he was super-hot?” Clarke rolled her eyes. She and Jasper had gone through the academy together, side by side. He knew her when she was in her phase of worshipping the ground Bellamy Blake walked on.

“That was years ago,” she replied indifferently.

“Doesn’t make it any less true,” he grinned. That was the moment Raven and Bellamy emerged, looking worn out.

“I hate fixing things,” Raven complained.

“You’re a mechanic,” Jasper replied. She shrugged, moving over to the table and letting one hand grab onto the metal to steady her.

“Doesn’t mean I like fixing things.” Jasper and Clarke raised their eyebrows and Bellamy moved through the room, hitting a few buttons as he went. “It means I like making things. Like, building the pod, yeah that was fun. But fixing things that Blake over there can’t even pronounce – not fun.”

“I could pronounce them,” Bellamy insisted. “I just didn’t want to.” Clarke snorted as Raven grinned. Jasper sent her a knowing look before Clarke hit his arm.

“I’m going to call home,” she announced, unstrapping herself from the table.

“I want to use it after,” Bellamy called as she pulled herself through the tunnel. “So don’t take too long.” She rolled her eyes but kept going anyway. She and Bellamy had toned down the arguing since the first month they knew each other. Those few weeks were tense for everyone; just listening to the two of them disagree. Since being forced into the same space, though, it meant that they’d had to talk about the fact that neither could just leave. They had to be civil and polite and get along until they returned to Earth.

A fact Clarke only agreed to because she was prone to storming out, and storming out of the station and into the vacuum meant… well… certain death within seconds. Not the way Clarke planned to go.

A few minutes later, Clarke was Skyping Earth – which was another amazing thing all in itself. She was grinning at the camera in the laptop, staring at the face on the other side of the computer.

“I can’t believe you’re alive,” Wells smiled. She shook her head.

“Pretty stunning that you are as well,” she replied. He shrugged, self-consciously nudging the bandage that wrapped around his body. “How’s it healing?”

“Oh you know, bullet wounds come, bullet wounds go, but you know what stays forever?”

“The fucking scar,” they both finished at the same time. The two of them grinned at their screens, Clarke on one side, in space, floating over two hundred miles from the surface of the Earth, and Wells, in his home in Ark, still on bedrest. It was insane when they thought about it.

“What’s space like?” Wells asked. He asked so often that Clarke no longer fumbled for words to describe it – some nights, she lie awake, thinking of what to tell her best friend, next time he asked.

“Amazing,” she replied simply, a pure smile forming on her face. “It’s so beautiful, and I have never felt lighter.” Wells grinned at her weight joke and rolled his eyes. “I’m an astronaut, Wells. Do you remember, when we were kids, we would look at the moon and say that we wanted to go there someday?” He shook his head.

“I remember that as you saying you wanted to go there someday, me saying there’s no oxygen and that would be stupid, and your mother telling you it was better to become a doctor.” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“But I’m doing it, Wells. I’m in space. I’m an astronaut. And I can literally see the moon at all times of the day.” Wells smiled at her; that proud smile he got whenever she was being passionate about something, or just talking and not stopping. It was easier to push away Wells telling her he loved her, when they were two hundred and fifty miles apart. And one was on Earth while the other wasn’t. It was so much easier.

They smiled at each other for a moment before there were noises forming from Wells’ side of the screen. He spoke to someone she couldn’t see, and a moment later, Thelonious Jaha was sitting next to his son, grinning at the laptop.

“Clarke Griffin,” he said in amazement. “Is space better than Earth?”

“I don’t know, I miss the gravity,” she replied. Uncle Theo smiled at her, shaking his head in disbelief. No one she knew truly believed that she worked for NASA, let alone was in space. Hell, she barely believed it. For the first week of being up there, Clarke had herself convinced that she was dreaming the entire thing.

“You know,” Uncle Theo started “Your mother hasn’t received a call in a long time.” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“She’ll get one when she gets one,” she replied, still trying to keep her smile. “I have called before, but she never picks up.”

“She’s a doctor.”

“An I’m an astronaut! She shouldn’t be complaining if we both have such heavy schedules.” Uncle Theo rolled his eyes.

“I’ll tell her you love her.”

“Thanks,” she grinned.

“Are you done with the computer yet?” She heard from behind her. Clarke turned to see Bellamy looking around the corner of a tunnel expectantly. She sighed, looking back to the computer.

“That’s the sign for me to log off,” she sighed, drinking in the image in front of her. Both Wells and his father sighed.

“We love you, Clarke,” Wells said, trying to put on a smile.

“I know. I miss you guys so much. I’ll call you soon,” she promised. “And stay on bedrest!” Wells grinned at her, and that was the last thing she saw of them before she cut off the call. Clarke sighed for a moment, leaning her hands against the laptop and staring at the blank screen. The Bellamy was behind her and she moved out the way for him.

“Thanks,” he said, typing into the search bar immediately. She recognised the username he was typing in to be his sister’s. “Is everyone back home alright?” He asked. Clarke paused for a moment, realising that Bellamy Blake was actually trying to participate in a small talk with her.

“Um, yeah. I guess. I mean, Wells got shot, but otherwise things seem to be going well,” she replied, stammering over her words. Bellamy raised his eyebrows as his finger froze above the enter button, that would call his sister.

“He was shot?” She nodded.

“Mugging,” she replied with a shrug. “His dad is Mayor of Polis, so people like to fuck about with the family; Wells can’t help his father’s position but stuff like that has happened before. I guess it was more serious this time.” Bellamy nodded before looking at her.

“I hope he gets better,” he said, and there was sincerity laced in his words. She nodded, her eyes searching his. It was odd for him to show her warmth after so long of unrest, but she didn’t mind. Clarke welcomed the change.

“Me, too.” Their eyes met for a moment, and she remembered how she felt, a few years beforehand when staring at his photo on a wall in the NASA headquarters. Back then, she was like a fan to him; a far off dream that would never become a reality. He was beautiful, even back then. And now, at twenty five, he was still a sight to behold. “Well, um,” she stuttered as she realised they were both staring at one another.

“Have a good talk with your sister.” He nodded, tearing his eyes from her. She forced herself not to look back as she moved away, pulled herself back up and out again.

“Bell!” She heard the happy cry as she left the tunnel – Bellamy’s sister’s voice that she’d heard so many times.

Three minutes later, Clarke was first thinking that Bellamy was a hypocrite. Mainly because he had given her a minute to talk to Wells before butting in, and now he had been going for three times as long. But that thought vanished when red lights starting thumping all around her, and a siren wailed. She was close to Bellamy, she went to him first.

“Bellamy!” She called out. He was looking around, a panicked look in his eyes.

“Shit,” he said. “Octavia, I’ve got to go.”

“What’s happening?” The girl on the screen asked. “Bell?”

“O, I love you. I love you, O, I’ve have to go now.” Clarke glanced over Bellamy’s shoulder and saw the afraid look across his sister’s face.

“I love you, Bell,” she said and then she was gone, Bellamy had hung up and he spun to look at her.

“Fire,” he said. She nodded. A fucking fire. In fucking space. Not only was this a bad situation to be in anywhere in the universe, but fire swallows oxygen, and when there is little of it around… an emergency like this was ten times worse.

Bellamy was good at moving through the space station – he’d been there multiple times and had practice in emergencies. This was still Clarke’s first time at the rodeo, and the first fire she’d come across. Sure, she’d been taught how to put out the fire and how to conserve oxygen – but that was all on Earth. They could run out of the smoke-filled room if it got too much or they went wrong. Which they did. If they run out now, they die no matter what.

Clarke was slower at making her way through, but she made sure to remember where Bellamy was headed, and looked at the screens as she went past, the red and orange exclamation mark beating like a heart above the area.

Fire in space was different to that on Earth. Gravity loses its grip on solids, liquids and gases, meaning that the hot air will expand – but not move upward. While the fire looks quite alien and strangely beautiful; dome-shaped and spherical; it can become more dangerous than that on Earth.

When Clarke saw the fire; larger than she’d hoped, spanning across the entire room of technology of Sector A; bursting into flames, it was strangely tranquil. Even with Jasper panicking and Raven staring, fumbling with the fire extinguisher, it was eerie and beautiful. However, she knew it was more dangerous than the fire on Earth.

The fire here was more tenacious; capable of surviving on less oxygen and burning for longer. Raven managed to squeeze on the fire extinguisher, squirting a gas at the flames. And Clarke knew it was going to happen – even though it was their only choice – but the direct air to the fire was just providing additional fuel.

It was slow-creeping but deadly, and Clarke was staring at the flames in fear. The warning siren went off again, and Clarke pushed herself over to a screen.

“Sector C is up in flames, too!” She called out. Bellamy swore in response, shouting as loud as he could as if it would make the fire stop.

“Reyes, Jordan, get a hold of this. Griffin, follow me.” She nodded and tore her eyes from the fire and her friends, moving her way behind Bellamy. She forced herself to keep up – she couldn’t lull behind anymore. This was dangerous and her heart was in her throat, but she needed to keep up.

Sector C was burning steadily; an explosion of some sort it seemed, although Clarke couldn’t figure out how. They were lucky it was just the four of them – the team was supposed to be bigger, but cut at the last minute.

Bellamy got the fire extinguisher – it was their only option, even if it could hurt them more, and Clarke tried to find the route of the problem. She clicked at the buttons on the screen and flipped switches, but all she could tell was that there was a malfunction. No kidding you dumb metal can, she said to herself.

Then the siren went off again and Bellamy yelled:

“What now?!” Clarke stared at the screen.

“Sector E,” she replied.

“Fire?”

“Fire.”

“Fuck!” They stared at each other for a long moment before she slammed on the intercom.

“Ground, Ground, this is the Ark, come in.” There was just static. “Ground. This is the Ark. We are in a code red situation. Please come in.” There were tears pricking in her eyes but she couldn’t focus on them right now. “Ground, please come in. This is the Ark, we are in a code red situation. Please come in… is anyone there?” It was static. White noise on top of silence and Clarke was staring at the intercom as if it was going to save them.

“Clarke,” Bellamy said from across the room. “Clarke, we can’t put out these fires.” She swallowed, looking down and blinking rapidly. Then Bellamy was next to her. “They won’t care, as long as we’re alive.”

“This is billions of dollars’ worth of expensive equipment,” she replied. “They’ll care.”

“Not if we’re dead with it. Clarke, we need to go.” She looked up at him for one heart breaking moment, as he stared back, the same fear she was feeling reflected in her eyes. A hand that was gripping her shoulder reaching up and gently swiped at her cheek, coming away damp as she sighed.

“Okay.” Bellamy nodded, hitting a different intercom button.

“Reyes, Jordan, meet at the escape pod. This is a sinking ship. Get to the escape.” He repeated that two more times, and Clarke stared at the screen, three pulsing exclamation marks. She went through the tunnels first, Bellamy pushing her along and insisting that she go before him. She was breathing heavily, and oxygen was burning fast. Every now and again they stopped, trying to reach Ground – but they never heard anything but static. In those moments, they’d call out to Raven and Jasper, hoping they were making their way to the pod. The speakers were working – they heard their voices through them. She just hoped they were still alive to hear it, too.

By the time they made it to the escape pod, Clarke was checking every screen she went past. The sirens grew louder and Clarke stared in horror as another exclamation mark appeared.

“They’re not here,” she told Bellamy. He nodded, jaw tight, staring at the screen. Raven and Jasper, fighting a fire in Sector A, with both B and C up in flames too.

“They’ll be here,” he promised. “Get on a suit.” She nodded, pulling out a space suit and climbing in. Clarke always found it difficult when there wasn’t gravity in the first place – but now it was worse. Now there was no gravity and a looming fear of death on her shoulders. Bellamy zipped her up, hands gripping her shoulders as they stared, waiting for their friends to come into view.

“Where are they?” She asked. Bellamy shook his head. He pulled on his suit, and Clarke zipped it up. She then held their helmets, watching him grind his jaw.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised suddenly. She widened her eyes.

“Bellamy, no-“

“I’m going to see if I can get to them and bring them back, open the pod and set the co-ordinates, okay?”

“Bellamy-“

“I’ll be right back.”

“We could put on the suits and open the hatches,” she said, trying to make him stay. She couldn’t lose him, too. Bellamy shook his head. “The vacuum would put out the fire.”

“They vacuum would kill Raven and Jasper,” he replied, swallowing. She shut her eyes and nodded. “If I’m not back in five minutes, or if the oxygen levels reach critical, then go without me, okay?” She shook her head.

“No, Bell-“

“Clarke. I’m being serious now. We may have our disagreements, but this is important.” Bellamy’s eyes stared directly into hers as she forced herself to nod. “Okay. Be brave, Princess.” He dipped his head quickly, landing space’s-quickest-kiss on her lips before pushing off from the metal. She stared after him in wonder, watching the empty space he used to be in.

The minutes after he left were spent waiting in fear. Clarke knew she had to push Bellamy’s lips on hers from her mind, so instead, she watched the screen. Another room set alight. Five rooms. She swallowed and glanced at the oxygen levels. They were holding but she knew it wouldn’t be for long – she already felt them dipping as she tried to steady her breathing.

She started the sequence for the launch, opening the door and pulling in the other suits, so Raven and Jasper could get ready if they arrived. When they arrived, she corrected. The sixth exclamation mark appeared after four minutes, this time on the oxygen tanks that surrounded the station. This wasn’t possible. It wasn’t happening. She hit the intercom again.

“Come in Ground,” she begged. “Please, come in. This is Ark. We’re going down. Code red.” Her voice was desperate and tears clouded her eyes. “Ground, please.” Her finger slipped from the button and Clarke took shuddering breaths as she stared at the oxygen levels. The lights changed from white to red, in the emergency. They mimicked her fear.

Around her the sirens seemed to be growing louder, and Clarke swallowed back her tears, taking long breaths. It had been five minutes. Hell, it had been six, maybe seven. And the station was in critical oxygen level and she couldn’t leave without Bellamy. She couldn’t. She may have disliked him and he may have been a royal pain in her ass for the past few years, but she couldn’t leave him to die. She couldn’t do this alone. Fuck.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered, her jaw tightening. Her breathing became laboured as she struggled to suck in clean air, smoke filling the space around her. She waited, the sirens getting louder and the oxygen getting thinner. “Shit, shit, shit.” Eight minutes passed, nine, ten. And she was waiting, by the doorway to the escape pod with most of the rooms on fire, and possibly three dead teammates and she couldn’t leave them. They were the dream team. They were what legends were made of. Gods amongst men. In fucking space. She couldn’t leave them – not if they were still alive. She hit the intercom for the speakers.

“Bellamy?” She asked into them, but she didn’t hear her voice echo through the Ark. No, she was mute for herself, and deaf to their cries. They could be calling for help and she wouldn’t know. They could be telling her to wait, they’ll be there in a minute, and she wouldn’t know. Clarke leant up against the wall, wishing she had solid ground underneath her feet, and gravity to hold her down.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she repeated. She pictured her parents’ faces – her father, long gone, and her mother, waiting for a phone call. Uncle Theo – a bright smile, telling her mother she loves her. Thank God. Wells, a bullet tearing through his skin – is that more painful than dying of fear? Clarke tried to focus on her breathing and not the faces of her friends and family passing before her. In, out. In, out. The sirens got louder and another room was up in flames. In, out. In, out.

“Clarke!” Her eyes snapped open and she was up, staring, searching for the voice. In front of her, in his space suit, floated Bellamy Blake. Her face broke out into a smile and she lunged forward, tackling him into a hug. He must have been shocked because it took a few moments for him to hold her back, squeezing her tightly, and chuckling into her ear. “I’m okay, we’re okay,” he repeated, over and over and over. She pulled back.

They’re alive, they’re alive. You’ve made it so far. Time to go home.

“Where are Raven and Jasper?” She asked, looking over his shoulder into the smog; the faint light of the flames breaking it’s way through.. Bellamy let go and his eyes trailed to the suits that she’d place in the pod for them. Then he went to the screen, and tapped a few buttons. Clarke watched, aware that the oxygen was failing and that they had a few minutes at most. But she saw what he was showing her – they had sealed off the room. Her eyes widened.

“I banged on it for ages, trying to get through to them,” he said quietly. “But-“ he tapped on another button and Clarke’s breathing sped up. Raven and Jasper, in Sector A, had cut off the oxygen to themselves. The oxygen that would have reached them was pumping back into the rest of the Ark, keeping it alive for the remaining few minutes. They had tried to cut off the flames from Clarke and Bellamy, as well as give them their oxygen.

“Couldn’t they have come out of the room to do it?” She asked. He shook his head sadly, tearing his eyes from the screen, and slowly moving into the pod. Bellamy was gripping her gloved hand, pulling her with him.

“It was manual,” he told her. “They would have had to do that in Sector B – but it was already gone. The only way to do it was inside, and they wouldn’t leave each other, you know that.” Clarke swallowed but nodded, her eyes refusing to blink. They were what legends were made of.

Jasper Jordan - the brother she never had, gone forever and never able to hold her and eat ice cream on the anniversary of her father’s death, or tell her that anything was possible. Jasper Jordan - the one who made tornados look like sunshine, with his best friend having been kicked out of the space programme, and his girlfriend passing suddenly after his zeroG course. Jasper Jordan was the rainbow after a storm, and he was lost to the vacuum of space.

And Raven Reyes… Clarke’s best friend and best damn mechanic to ever be. She had the uncanny ability to make jokes in bad situations, and place puns into casual conversation - near impossible to leave without having laughed, including Bellamy, who rarely took much up there as a joke.

And they were both gone; eaten by the flames with no warning, and leaving her in the ashes. So she followed Bellamy as he led her inside the pod, the lack of oxygen stinging at her eyes. But it didn’t make a difference, because her sight was already clouded with memories, as the smoke crawled closer to their bodies.

There was very little left inside, and crying didn’t feel like an option. Not when their mission wasn’t over. Not until their feet were on solid ground again.

She stared at nothing as Bellamy sighed sadly, shutting off the escape pod. Next, he strapped her in; her muscles not wanting to work and her sadness overwhelming. He strapped himself in, tapping out the end of the launch sequence, before securing on her helmet and then his own.

“It was my fault…” she whispered into the helmet as she came to the realisation. The speakers that connected their space suits were already on, and Bellamy turned to her, squeezing her gloved hand in his.

“Clarke, don’t-”

“No,” she insisted with a sigh. “I should’ve waited until you were both firmly inside. Maybe I didn’t check the pressure, or maybe I hit the wrong button - did I leave the locking motors running for too long-”

Bellamy cut her off just as the escape pod cut itself from the ship, that was now writing in flames. She stared out the window, not wanting to look at him, and her eyes wandered over the dancing flames, burning an array of colours that looked eerily beautiful against the black velvet sky. Bellamy took both of her hands in his, and she sighed, turning back to look at him. He pressed his helmet to hers, so they were looking directly at one another, glass the only thing refraining the contact that they so desperately craved.

Around her, the vessel began to hum with life and vibrate as the systems prepared themselves to fire back to Earth, but the two remained, gazing into each others eyes.

“Clarke…” his voice was slightly choked up through the intercom between the two suits. She squeezed his hand for him to continue. “Thank you for waiting for me… I know - I know I said-” he cleared his throat and Clarke nodded.

“I know,” she replied, gritting her teeth and forcing tears not to fall. She was an astronaut, damn it. She had to keep it together. He looked lost for words as his eyes flickered shut, so Clarke spoke again, knowing exactly what she wanted to say. “I didn’t want to lose you, too.”

His eyes remained closed but his face loosened, relaxed as his pulled his head away and leant against the seat, preparing for the rocket boosters to engage.

“We’ll be okay,” he told her as they drifted for a few moments in space. “We’ll be just fine.”

“This has happened before?” She eventually asked. He nodded.

“They may say that I brought home a seven man team alive and well,” he told her sadly. “But it was a sixteen man team to start with.” Clarke reached out blindly, and gripped at his hand again. She felt him squeeze it back. “When we land on Earth, alive,” he started. “Do you want to get a drink?” Clarke almost laughed, and she watched his free hand punch in the directions to start the launchers that would deliver them home, safe and sound.

“Sure. We’re going to need one,” she replied, trying to remain calm as the tears fell down her cheeks and clogged up her throat. He nodded and she shut her eyes, leaning her head back in her helmet and just focusing on his hand in hers.

Neither of them let go through re-entry, when the pod was heating up and she felt like she could barely breathe, nor when they landed in the water, and had to pull each other out of their suits, and swim back to shore. They didn’t let go when they were using the phone at a pizza place, off the shore of Polis, calling Ground and telling them what happened, or when they returned there to NASA, or told them about Raven and Jasper, or at the parade or the interviews or seeing their friends and family again, or when Clarke said she didn’t want to go up to space again, or when Bellamy said that he’d lost too many people to give it another go.

They didn’t let go, and Clarke didn’t mind one bit, because she may have gravity again, and it was nice to feel her feet on solid ground – but as long as she had Bellamy Blake nearby, she knew she wouldn’t go drifting away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I love and appreciate all comments, kudos and bookmarks you guys send me, and I will send out good vibes to all those who do. I would love to know what you thought of this!


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